The Cabaret
by Leek-Chi
Summary: In this LenKu mystery set in the swingin' jazz ago of 1920s Chicago, young Detective Allen Kagamine is faced with a one-of-a-kind case involving the killing of showgirls that work for the well known bar and nightclub, The Cabaret. The Cabaret's starlet, Miss Hatsune, is determined to help Len out with this case, no matter what the press might have to say. Len is more than wary.
1. The Cabaret

The Chicago city is rough and grey and smoke laces the tops of the skyscrapers in an elegant and misty doily of clouds. Allen Kagamine walks at a brisk pace as the chill of November threatens to bite at his skin underneath his heavy black coat and nips at his ankles under his woolen socks. He is smoking a cigarette between his slender pointer finger and thumb, on its side. He is tired and his head aches but he is alert and he moves through the crowd with a quick pace, like any member of the Five Point Gang could be lurking in one of the alleyways between tall silvery buildings. With the kind of stuff that's been going on in the city lately, he finds that to be practically beleivable. He takes a quick puff of his cigarette as he walks, and continues on his way. It's not that he's paranoid. This kind of behavior is normal, or at least second nature for the young man. His profession is one that has taught him the importance of caution.

Allen, mostly known to his more intimate acquaintances as simply Len, is a detective, and he looks less than the part. He is a bit feminine and his face is young. He is young - about twenty-four and blond like the sun. His hair hangs like ribbons of gold around his face in frankly girlish and wavy tresses. Most of it is tied back in a black elastic. He is walking to his headquarters, blue eyes like the invisible sky, which is now covered in clouds. He turns into a less busy street, a change from the honking of cars and the jabber of people bustling about, getting to the bank or talking about a new fad - bubble gum, which was very pink and sweet and it made Len's stomach turn to even smell it. He put his cigarette to his lips again and let out the smoke in a velvety cloud. He is not like bubblegum. He is sarcastic and straightforward not sweet, and frankly, quite lonely. Not that he minds this much. He doesn't work very well with other people, and the partner that he does work with is someone he could never be mad at. His little sister was like that, although she did remind him a little bit of bubblegum - without the pink.

"I wonder why you keep me waiting

Charmaine, my Charmaine..."

Music rings out from a nearby car radio, and then fades away as the car comes out of its stopped position to zoom off down the street. A part of Len misses the melody. He feels as melancholy as the lyrics as he grabs the doorhandle of a small and rather shabby looking little establishment with wide and beautiful windows but altogether a dreary and brown atmosphere. It's instantaneous, the warmth from inside thaws out his bad mood and his headache and he is enveloped in a musty smell of ink and paper and powder and tobacco. This is his place, and he won't share it with anyone. He taps his cigarette out and dumps it in the ashtray on his desk, which is by the window and looks out over the lonely street. It is made of a chestnut wood material and is littered with papers and manilla folders. There are a lot of those. He likes them and while he doesn't enjoy the process of organizing, he likes to be organized. Any tools that may give him the illusion of organization are good in his book.

It isn't until later that he hears the door open and looks up from where he is going through his papers from the last case and filing them away for later when he looks up and finds his twin sister in all her tiny, green eyed, blonde haired glory. She's terribly fashionable, her short blonde hair in Marcel Waves pinned in curls to her head. Len looks unimpressed, because he is unimpressed. There isn't really any better way to put it. He finds punctuality to be important. He hasn't been late since Christmastime of 1927, two years ago. He was on his way up north to visit his parents for Christmas, and his train had gotten stuck in the snow. It hadn't been something he could have controlled.

"About time you arrived, Rin," He remarks. "I've been organizing all morning. You know what that does to me. What good is an assistant when she can't even arrive to work on time?"

His sister's green eyes flash ferociously. "I am not simply an assistant. I am your sister, and I do trust you remember the deal we made ages ago? What's got you in such a bad mood this morning? Oh, look, you haven't even made coffee. I got the coffee maker last month and you've hardly touched it, but you insist that you love it."

"I'm sorry," He says, and he means it, but he keeps his expression neutral. "I'm in a rut. There's no murder or abduction or robbery to be solved. I'm not occupied, and I'm not happy with being out of work." This is true. His last case had been rather simple, a quick murder case that involved a well known gang, and he had put a stop to it before it could claim more than one victim. And now he was thirsty for more, his mind simply waiting for another case, something to busy himself with, to take his mind off matters. He and Rin made money case-by-case, so there wasn't much to do when there was a shortage of crime.

"When was the last time you read the paper?" Rin looks rather annoyed. She normally looks like this when it comes to Len.

Len glances at her. "Not yet this morning. Anything good?"

Rin looks at him hard. "What good is a detective that isn't even caught up with the world?" She sighs, exasperated. "That place, the club known as The Cabaret, had to cancel a show last night."

"What for?"

"A showgirl was killed last night! A knife in her side. All the clues in the article point to three suspects."

"Can you get me profiles for each person?" A case at a club, involving girls that danced in sexy clothing couldn't possibly described as a main interest, but he couldn't deny that it sounded just like one of those mystery novels he used to read when he was a teenager. Or that he wasn't interested in the girls. Or the sexy clothing. Or the prospect of finally having a case to work on. Actually, this case sounded delectable for more than one reason, but he couldn't get distracted.

"I think I can," Rin says. He knows she can. She does it all the time, for every case he's worked on. "But I think you should scope out the place for yourself. And you had better read the article. It might give you some hints to the true murderer."

She leaves a file folder on Len's desk and makes off to hers, heels clicking behind her in a rhythmic pattern.

Len pushes the rest of his papers away to make room for the folder, which he opens and takes out a neatly pinned together newspaper clipping.

Showgirl Killed Backstage of The Cabaret

by Miriam Stockley

The locally famous nightclub in the western part of town had to cancel a show yesterday evening due to a brutal and unexplained murder. Police are on the case but have yet to gain adequate information enough to begin to piece clues together.

I was not able to even step into the scene of the crime backstage, and the manager and owner of the club, Meiko Shion, is refusing to talk to the press and even the police. Her husband, Kaito Shion, was in the midst of rehearsals during the approximate time of the murder and has not opened up about anything related to the case. Officials are labeling them as people of interest and possible suspects to the case. The only other person believed to have been linked to the case is the starlet Miku Hatsune, who was also backstage during the approximate time of the murder and is a leading suspect in the case. If these three are directly linked to the murder, it is not certain. Keep an eye out as more news unfolds regarding the murder.

This sounded exactly like Len's cup of tea, and although the article hadn't really given his many pointers, he was interested in upstaging the police, and suddenly he isn't in such a bad mood anymore. He folded the file and slipped the news clipping inside. Then he takes out a cigar from the cigar drawer of his desk and lights it, leaning back in his chair with a sigh.

"Hey, Rin, I'm going to go to that club later," he calls to his sister, where she was sitting in the back of the office, having just ended a phonecall.

"Perfect," Rin sounded excited, and grinned brightly at him. "You need to take a load off anyway. That last case really drained you." A lie, he told himself, although he knew full well that he had put himself in plenty of danger on those nights trying to scope out the gang's hideout. "Now, I'd suggest organizing that monstrous mess on your desk."

Len rolls his eyes and takes a puff of the cigar.

* * *

The time on Len's silver watch reads eight-thirty as the detective puts aside his pride to step into the darkness of The Cabaret. The club is not a place that he could ever envision himself going to in his right mind, and he prided himself on being able to think clearly in most situations. As he enters, he straightens his coat and angles his hat low over his eyes, taking a puff of his cigar. He walks to the bar, which stretches parallel to the stage, shiny and expensive, not to mention illegal (as the Prohibition was still in effect) bottles of alcohol on a shelf behind it. There are tables scattered around the entire place. It is plenty crowded. Men and even a few women are seated at the tables and along the bar, flirting and talking excitedly and drunkenly. Smooth jazz plays from the grand piano situated to the left side of the stage, where a blue haired man is tinkling out a melody. He sits at the far end of the bar, with a good view of the stage, which has red curtains spread across it.

If it weren't for the case, Len wouldn't be here right now. It's noisy and he wants to leave, but he glances around and adjusts his hat again, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. He was alone and nervous and smart - and he didn't even drink heavily. The only thing that even remotely interested him was the case. Only the case.

"Hey, mister!" calls a voice, and Len whirls around to find a doe eyed woman with chestnut hair and bright red lipsticked lips leaning across from him from the other side of the bar. She is holding a bottle of vodka. "Not to be rude, but what's a gentleman like you doing in a place like this? Awful suspicious if you ask me, what with everythin' goin' on here lately. I'm sure you've heard. Can I get ya anythin' to drink?"

"Bring me a Southside, I suppose," Len says, but he's not intending on drinking it. He wants only to sound like he knows what he's talking about, so he names the first drink on his mind and hopes it exists and wasn't epically horrible.

"Pretty risque, honestly, mister. Legend says it's what Al Capone likes to drink," The bartender woman says lightly, but there is a nervous tone to her voice. Len takes off his hat and sets it on his lap.

"Woman," He says forcefully, watching her shakily pour gin into a cocktail shaker. "Do I look like any gang member to you?" He hoped not. That wasn't the intent of his clothing. Mostly, he just liked the way its felt when he was well dressed, especially in public. He was wearing black dress pants and a white collared shirt with a blue vest over it, and brown shoes with black laces.

"Yes. Maybe. Well, no I suppose. But you're awful clean cut and with everythin' goin' on-"

"Which is precisely what I'm hoping to talk to someone about. Is your name Meiko Shion?" A perfect lead in to the topic that he had been looking to speak with her about. She had left it wide open, and Len was glad he could cut to the chase.

"Yessir," She says, her voice, which already had a nervous edge, became even more guarded with worry and apprehension as she begins to add lemon juice and five mint leaves to the mixture before shaking it. "But why would you need to know?" She takes a glass out from under the counter and fills it with ice from a metal tin.

He reaches into his jacket and takes out his wallet from an inner pocket, letting the golden detective's badge hang in front of her face. "Oh, there are multiple reasons. Detective Allen Kagamine here, at your service."

Mrs. Shion looks at the badge in interest for a few moments, but her face contorts into an unfriendly scowl. "I'll tell you, Mister Detective, I don't know nothin'." She shakes the alcohol shaker vigorously for around fifteen seconds. "I came to work one evenin' and I found the body while I was goin' to find my husband," She adds while she's pouring the drink over the ice in the other glass. She doesn't elaborate. Len works to pull more information out of her by touching on weak spots, which is something he has learned to do from personal experience with Rin, who overused the tactic, thank-you-very-much.

"And your husband, he's Mister Shion, isn't he? The piano man?" Len eyes her carefully, but he knows that it's true. He wants to delve deeper into what Meiko knows about the case. She seems to be a tough nut to crack, and the press couldn't get any information, but that won't stop him from getting what he needs - and he's had a tougher time than this getting information out of people.

"Yessir," she says as she pushes the drink towards Len. "But he don't know nothin' either, trust me-"

"Look ma'am, I'm not interested in prying information out of you," lies Len, because that is precisely what he's after. "But I'm afraid The Cabaret is going to be closed if this isn't sorted out. Already a speakeasy, and now you've got the press and the police taking interest? Not too bright in my opinion." Len taps his fingers on the counter of the bar and he takes a sip of the drink, which is better than he thought, a lemon and mint flavor going down nicely with the burn of the gin. The bartender's brown eyes flash angrily. Len prepares himself for an outburst, and isn't the least surprise when the seemingly kindred woman explodes momentarily.

"And I'm not interested in havin' police tramplin' all over me and my husband's and Miss Hatsune's stage!" she cries, slamming her hands down on the counter. Len's drink sloshes around a little bit. There is a slight hush, and the people along the bar and some of the crowd by the tables glance nervously at the pair. Len doesn't like the attention, and rushes to calm Mrs. Shion down.

"Ma'am, if you don't want police around, you'd better tell me what's been going on here," Len lowers his voice a little and gives her what he hopes to be a firm glare. "You're making a scene. Just listen to me. I don't work for the Chicago police. I'm entirely freelance - my sister and I could solve this case in no time at all." The woman eyes him warily before something seems to break in her mind as he stares at her, and she settles and walks around the end of the bar to sit on a stool beside Len.

The bartender's shoulders slump in defeat. "I'll tell you everythin' I know," she says. "But it's all confidential! Promise me you won't go runnin' your mouth to the press? They'll twist it all up horribly."

"Yes'm. I've got a confidentiality policy with all my clients," Len says. He's had his own run-ins with the press. Mostly, they were all too terrifying to speak of. The media really did have quite the effect on peoples' minds, and Len greatly respected the media, out of fear or maybe even appreciation for the sheer power they possessed and held on the minds of the people of Chicago. That probably made them sound like horrible corporate gods sent to control people, but that's essentially how Len saw them.

"Well, then, it goes somethin' like this. I came to work on Wednesday at around eight o'clock in the mornin' like I always do. I've got lots to do, y'know, with the cleanin' and the booze and all, and I like to watch the girls. And that mornin', Miss Megurine was runnin' the choreography with the girls when I got there, so I watched for a bit. I went backstage to look for Miss Miku, because she was usually there either watchin' the girls or practicing herself. She wasn't in her dressin' room, so I looked in the green room, and that's where I found little Miss SeeU, all spread out on the floor with a knife in her right side. I screamed and she came runnin' from the direction of the bathrooms," Says Meiko. It seemed like a believable story despite the fact that she sounded so unsure. She didn't have any witnesses, and until Len met the starlet, he concluded that Miku would determine whether or not the bartender was telling the truth. "She says she didn't hear no one enter the stage doors. An' then she had to leave because she didn't want the press givin' her any bad coverage. Looks like they did anyways."

"Was anyone else missing that day?"

"I didn't notice anyone missin', but of course there are a lot of girls and none of them would wanna miss rehearsal and my husband was in rehearsal with 'em, runnin' their music and preparin' for the show that evenin'. We didn't know that it would be cancelled."

"Can I perhaps have a chat with Miss Hatsune sometime?" Len inquired thoughtfully, and he thought that maybe he should converse with Miss Megurine. That could wait for a later date, however. He wanted to find a way to get backstage so that he could ask Miku a few questions and figure out if Meiko was telling the truth, and if he could gather more information to compliment Rin's suspect profiles, he wanted to take the chance.

"Oh, I dunno, Mister. The Miss don't like havin' visitors. I'll see what I can do," says Meiko, smiling a bit cryptically. "You'll have to stay and watch the show first. You can't come to The Cabaret without watchin' our Miss Miku."

"Will it be worth my time?" he asks as he takes another sip of his drink. It really is good.

"Oh, Mister," Says Meiko and she grins almost wickedly. "You'll be smitten."

* * *

 **It's not an update to the story, but I wanted to rewrite some of the first few chapters. There is still some editing I have to do, but it hould be done in time to welcome some new readers to the story.**

 **Please review! I love to fond out what you have to say about the story and my writing. Think of it as personal writing fuel.**

 **~xoxo**

 **Leek**


	2. Starlets

**(A/N: I won't do these little notes often, but if I do it's important that you read them. I didn't like the way these first two chapters flowed, so I'm rewriting some of the parts. It shouldn't change any of the plot, however, so don't worry. I'll tell you if that happens. Enjoy the chapter and tell me what you think! It's a little slow right now, but I promise things will pick up within the next few chapters.)**

* * *

Len's head is buzzing. He has only had one drink, but he didn't have the best tolerance and he had to keep himself sane for any questioning later. The club is even louder than it was before, or maybe it just sounded that way because of the alchohol, but Len doesn't mind much. He has shed his coat to reveal his blue vest and clean white shirt, the liquid fire in his stomach making him feel warm. He wasn't planning on staying this long, but what can he say? The Southside was delectable, for a speakeasy drink, and there was something about the rowdy, drunk crowd that energized Len and put a thrill in his bones, like he wanted to get drunk. Plus, Meiko's promise didn't sound half bad.

At around ten thirty, Len notices the lights dimming. He turns around on the bar stool to face the stage. Everyone cheers and then falls into a rather silent trance-like state, starign at the curtains and what might come out from behind them. When the stage lights up, and the music starts, girls in tight sequin dresses and nylon stockings held up by garters litter the stage in sensual poses. And then they begin to dance, hips swaying and skirts swishing to reveal too much silky, creamy skin. Len's head is still buzzing, a dull, painful throb in the back of his head reminds him how little he can drink before he's fully drunk. He's a little embarrassed by it, even though that doesn't seem in his nature. He's always prided himself on being intelligent and practical, but now he's caught up in the music and the girls, looking delicious and sensual, long legs and flying fringe. Drums are rat-a-tat-ing and the piano is loud and the brass is piercing and there's something about the jazz and the booze that makes Len forget himself, caught up in a whirl of sin.

And alas, it's gone too fast. The stage is dark and the music is gone and someone coughs over the applause that fades into silence as the piano starts back up again, this time in a slower and easier pace. There is an obscure, blue-haired man bouncing on the keys. This must be Kaito Shion. He had an alibi, but Len still couldn't help but wonder. He's wearing a blue tie and a white suit with a matching hat. In a few seconds, a goddess appears beside him.

If the chorus girls earlier were sin, there was no way to describe the creature hoisting herself to sit on the piano, crossing her legs and smirking as applause fills the room. Somewhere, Len can hear Meiko's voice, yelling "Make me proud, honey!" Len doesn't need any other clues to deduce that this is Miss Miku Hatsune, the starlet of The Cabaret, murder suspect extraordinaire. She looks like this what was she was born to do, and she looks sneaky and gorgeous as she blows a kiss to the audience. She's fizzing with charm and oozing sex like it's going to spill over her, brimming at the top of her head like some unseen force of energy, and then she opens her mouth to sing in an angelic and crystal clear voice.

 _"It's good, isn't it grand, isn't it great_

 _Isn't it swell, isn't it fun, isn't it nowadays . . ."_

Every time her lips part, Len is mesmerized. Meiko was right, he is smitten - and a little more than that. She's dressed in white and silver fringe, hardly a strip of clothing on her legs except for nylon stockings, and her feet are in silver heels. Her hair is teal, and tied up in two twintails. Her eyes are huge and jewel like, and they match the oceanic color of her long locks. Her expression is like that of the Mona Lisa, captivating and secretive.

 _There's men, everywhere jazz, everywhere booze_

 _Everywhere life, everywhere joy, everywhere nowadays . . ."_

She gets down from the piano, and begins to walk, each step like that of a succubus and each breath like that of an angel's and Len is so in love with her he thinks he might cry. He curses Rin for this, suggesting that he go see this preposterous distraction. She is a distraction. She might have killed an eighteen year-old girl earlier that week, and Len couldn't bring himself to care. He wanted to up and leave, or rather slam the girl's body into his and kiss her senseless, which makes him furious with himself, but obviously, he couldn't. His body feels hot and his heartbeat is in his stomach.

 _"You can like the life you're living_

 _You can live the life your like_

 _You can even marry Harry_

 _But mess around with Ike . . ."_

Everything is silent. She sits on the side of the stage and fingers the top of her stockings, teasingly rolling them down a little and back up before she stands again to lean over the piano, playing with her teal locks between two slender fingers. She's a minx and a tease and in her expression, it is apparent that she knows this and wants to flaunt it like a lion shakes it's golden fur.

 _And that's good, isn't it grand, isn't it great_

 _Isn't it swell, isn't it fun, isn't it... but nothings stays . . ."_

And then, like the last time, it's a taste, and then it's over with a few more words, singing the last few with a croon and a belt and then she has disappeared. There are a few more acts, but none as captivating and tantalizing as Miku Hatsune's. He calls Meiko over and asks for a few shots of whiskey, groggily trying to clear his head, but Meiko talks him into a tall glass of ice water instead, which unfogs his mind.

After the final performance, the stage lights up and the crowd begins to thin, out the door in a steady trickle, tipping Meiko well. Some of the men, who usually have scratchy beards and a heavy stench of alcohol, make crude comments on her generously sized bust. She wastes no time in threateningly drumming her red manicured fingers on the table as she waits for them to leave, eyes blazing and eyebrows drawn.

She lays a finger on Len's shoulder when the bar is almost cleared out, and he stands, taking his jacket and hat, which he puts on and angles it like usual. He follows her wordlessly up onto the stage, and then behind a heavy velvet curtain. There is a small table next to the wall, which is laid with a sparkly black cloak draped over it. Meiko gestures at it. "SeeU's," she says in a whisper. "She was gonna do a duet with Miss Hatsune tonight, but y'know, she ain't around no more."

The backstage area is dark and chilled. The walls are grey and the floor is a pale wood. There are a number of dressing room doors, each closed. A sound like muttering is coming from each of them, like a hushed conversation is going on behind the doors. To the far left of the hallway, there is a set of double doors. On the opposite side, there is another dressing room, with a star on the door, like in a cliche cinema show. Meiko presses her hand on the door and taps her fingers a little.

"Miss, y' have a visitor," she says softly, in almost a motherly way. She lays four of her red fingers on the wooden handle of the door.

There is a rustle from somewhere behind the door. A few moments pass, and then the door opens. The starlet is clad in a simple dress that clings to her form in a sky blue mass and reaches to the floor, and a sweater. The ensemble makes her seem more real. She is quite a bit shorter than him, maybe 160 centimeters tall. She focuses her vision on Len, and looks him up and down, and says something like "Not a reporter, is he? I certainly hope not," as she looks at him blankly. Len looks at her in a collectedly, with a well rehearsed and controlled expression. He angles his hat, which is becoming a nervous habit. He should really stop doing that.

"Hello, Miss Hatsune," he says. "What a fine evening it has been."

"This is Len Kagamine, Miss. He's a detective, not a reporter," says Meiko gently. "He wants to ask you a few questions."

Her eyes dart to Meiko's face, which is kind but also has a hint of firmness. Her eyes move to scrape up over Len's chest, up his neck, to stare at his lips, and then boring right into his eyes. "Not a reporter? Alright, well if Missus Shion has met with you, I trust her judgement that you will not do anything distasteful or indecent. As for being a detective, I'd like to see some identification," she says as she sticks her head out into the hallway, looking up and down the corridor.

Len shows her his badge. She looks at it, then back to Len's lips, lingering there yet again, and then they trail up to his eyes again, and she opens the door a little bit wider. "Come in," she says, "And tell me what business you have here."

Len takes her invitation, and steps into the small room. The four walls are painted ivory white. There is a violet couch situated against the left wall. In front of the couch, there is a glass coffee table, which has a number of magazines - McClures's, Motion Picture, Photoplay, Life, Time, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, along with a copy of that morning's edition of the Chicago Tribune - piled on the surface. There is white carpet in here, and a vanity with hot lights is on the other side of the room, covered in different perfumes, hair products, and makeup powders, brushes, gels, lipsticks, and mascaras are strewn carelessly around. A multitude of clutter is scattered everywhere. A black telephone, one of the new and expensive ones, is on a small side table. A rack hangs a menagerie of different costumes. There is a pair of silver heels on the floor by the vanity. Len recognizes them as the ones Miku had performed in.

Miku gestures to the sofa, and Len sits, feeling scrutinized by her endless gaze. He fidgets with his wallet as she sits down. He clears his throat. "I'm sure you know what I'm here to talk to you about. It looks like you've seen Ms. Stockley's article in the paper this morning, so it should be no surprise." Both gazes turn to the open newspaper on the table before them. The starlet coughs nervously.

"Meiko, perhaps you could excuse us?" She says in a dismissive tone. Meiko nods to her, and leaves. Miku's expression turns cold as she looks at Len again.

"Why are you here? You have no business at the Cabaret, Mister Detective. We don't want any police in here, and we've done a pretty good job of keeping the bastards out so far," she hisses. Len wants to shrink under her eyes. She has a beautiful glare, and he knows he isn't welcome on this sofa or in the bar, really. He is disturbing the loud and rowdy peace that are speakeasies, and now he has a showgirl to question.

"I'm not with the police, Miss Hatsune," he says. "The police have morals I'd love to question, but that would be a conversation for a later date, and a later time, quite frankly. I am a separate unit. Unless you or Mister and Missus Shion is the murderer of Miss SeeU, I choose to believe that all three of you are as innocent as angels."

"And what about those morals? Gloss them over for me, because I really am intrigued now," She says, doubt and venom lacing her words.

He answers back with as much benign force as he can muster without sounding scattered. He intends to sound smart, and smart is half intelligence and half patience. "Police officers are all made up of brutish young men that were too stupid to go to a university. They excel only at brute force, and leave the dirty work for others only to claim credit for the solution of the crime," Len says, gazing at her. Her icy expression seems to thaw, but it is still as hard as stone. "If I'm going to do hard work, I'd rather do it of my own accord. I don't have any policy other than a secrecy policy. That being said, if I do find the criminal or solution to a crime, I won't hesitate to phone the police administration. I don't have the authority to arrest someone."

"I didn't kill SeeU," Miku says. "I've never killed anyone in my life. My record's clean. You've got no reason to have me as a suspect."

This is the direction that Len liked to take with interrogations. Soft couches and pretty girls were extras, but he seemed to finally be getting something done. The magic that he had felt radiating off her when she was performing was gone, the spell had been broken by her bitterness and sharpness of her tongue. He was able to focus. Her face looked thoughtful.

"If it wasn't you, do you know who it could have been?" Len asks.

"I've truthfully no idea. I would like to know as much as the public, who are surely crying about this. SeeU was indeed a little gem. Such a nice girl. Whoever did this has got no respect and probably wants attention, based on the way the body wasn't hidden, rather out for all the girls and I to see . . . "

"An astounding observation, Miss Hatsune. Did you hear anything the night of the murder?"

"No."

"Notice anything out of the ordinary?"

"No, I don't think so. I was on the phone with my cousin that afternoon. . . Oh! Someone cut the cord of my telephone mid conversation! It was a nice and clean cut, and I had forgotten about it until now."

"So you're saying that the murderer snuck into the building, killed SeeU, and cut your telephone cord?"

"Yes, I suppose that could be the case. But I didn't hear anyone come in, so maybe the murderer was already in the building, killed SeeU, and cut my phone cord so that I couldn't call the police for help?"

"Do you have the only telephone in the building?"

"Yessir. I requested it when I first started here," Miku replied. "But there is a pay phone just outside and around the corner. It's getting late, and I must return home soon, but, before I leave, I have a request to make."

"And what might that be?" Len has never met such a suspect as Miss Miku Hatsune, but he is as interested with what she's about to say as he is with the information he just pulled from the starlet.

"I want to assist you."

"With what?"

"For someone who acts so bright, you really are stupider than you let on," she mutters, but there is a hint of humor in her voice. She sits back on the sofa. "The case, you absolute crumb. I do expect that you are building one, and not asking me these questions for personal enjoyment? Or maybe," she says, and her gaze turns almost sultry. "You really are a distasteful man? You're very attractive, Allen Kagamine, but I, contrary to popular belief, am a virgin, and I wish to stay that way."

And Len stops, choking on air. That wasn't what he was suggesting at all. The request is ridiculous - a showgirl assisting a well respected man in a murder case? Practically unheard of. And while he works cases with Rin, he feels it's different. Not the same. "Would you be willing to risk your life? To perhaps send those you love and are close to prison? If it meant holding someone like Miss Shion at gunpoint, would you do it, and without hesitation?"

Miku looks at him, unimpressed. "What a romantic you are. But yes, I'd do that although Kaito and Meiko are a bit like a mother and father to me and I very nearly couldn't bear to watch the pain in their eyes. I would risk my career and all I hold dear to find the culprit of this case."

"And this isn't an elaborate ruse to focus my suspicions on someone else, is it?"

"If I had an elaborate ruse, I don't think I'd be sitting here right now. I'd probably be planning my elaborate ruse."

He digs through his wallet, which he has been fingering nervously, and hands her a small business card. "Meet me at this address tomorrow morning, eight o'clock sharp," He stands. "I must be taking my leave now, if you don't mind. As far as I know, you're a member of this case's team."

She stands as well, and wraps her finger around a strand of her hair as she walks with him towards the door.

"I won't be late."


	3. The Piano Man

The starlet is late. A minute late. Len is at the office already, nervously tapping his feet on the floor under his desk. He is sipping coffee and on his third mug full. This is driving Rin absolutely insane, but his hat and wallet, his usual nervous toys, are by his jacket, hung on the coat stand, and he has nothing else to fidget with. The walls of the office are tan and the wooden floor is made of a dark oak material. The windows are dirty with the rain water that is trickling down the windows from the blackened sky. Len wants them cleaned. Maybe the rain will do a temporary job.

"Give the girl a break, Christ, Len!" says Rin after he voices his complaints about the showgirl's punctuality to his sister in ways that weren't very considerate to the fact that it was pouring rain and that Miku had a night job and probably wasn't used to waking up early. Rin was a nice person, sweet and charming, with an edge of perky little sister-ness that made her all the more dear to Len. She was the one that made sure that Len wasn't letting his sarcastic and literal outlook on the world effect his work and his mood, inviting him to think more freely and broaden his horizons to new ideas. He doesn't know where he would be without her. Nevertheless, it was just in her nature to be so forgiving. It made Len want to smile. "It's almost as if you want to be in her company, the way you're acting like a schoolboy waiting for a girl he likes," she remarks. Len wants to put his head in his hands.

"She'd said she wasn't going to be late," he grumbles, and leaves it at that, settling on taking his coffee cup to his lips and sipping, only to find that the cup was empty and the only thing left in it was the ground up beans that had escaped into the murky depths only to be found later and without the heat and utter blackness of the drink to keep them hidden. He frowns into the mug and licks the grounds off his lips indignantly. The pouring weather seemed to be echoing his mood - or standing as a warning to Len and the rest of the relatively carefree population of Chicago of a bad event to come.

"It is eight-oh-one, Len. Please calm down and goodness - stop drinking coffee," she says and takes the white mug from his hands. He groans. "It makes you nervous to be drinking all that caffeine. and you know it. I'm the irresponsible little sister, here, and you're starting to act like me!" she says as she walks away with a click click click of her high heeled shoes, and sets his mug on her desk, which is clean and has a large stack of papers on the end of it. "I can't say that makes me proud either - I'm supposed to be unique. Either way, your troublesome fretting is getting on my nerves. Every client is a breeze, someone you are professional and polite with. Why should Miss Hatsune be any different? Sex appeal? What is it, Len, because I really am simply dying to know." Now sarcasm laces his sister and assistant's words. Normally, be would be a bit bothered by anyone who spoke to him in such a way, but he could never bring himself to be angry at Rin, his little sister, his friend and companion.

Len thinks about Rin's words. Miku Hatsune is a gorgeous creature indeed. But was it sex appeal, or the sheer strength of her mouth and mind working as one - every sentence, every string of consonants and vowels connecting to make the wittiest of replies and remarks? What drew him to the girl? He could not fathom it, as he was not attracted to her romantically, and while he could not deny the sheer fascination he felt with her despite the annoyance he felt at her lateness and his bitterness regarding her in general, he refused to narrow it down to how well she performed at her night job. He had always found it ridiculous to be attracted to something as simple as a name and an image, and Miku had been only that until they had met in her dressing room yesterday evening. Still, he couldn't help but wonder at himself and at her and why he was nervous to meet with her. Len hates being unsure of himself, and so he chooses to do the only thing he knows how to in these situations.

"Did you draw up a profile for Mr. Shion?" he changes the subject hastily, trying to focus on the case and not the fact that Miku was late and probably would be just as beautiful as the evening before. She was like a hurricane, uncontrollable and sinful and wild, and she had shown up in Len's dreams last night, disturbing the peace he felt only in slumber, the piece of forbidden fruit in the Garden Of Eden. His dreams were always vague and he couldn't remember the exact reason she had been trespassing in his sleepy world that was so unlike Chicago and included only himself. He didn't like it. He didn't like any of it. He wanted to shake her off, hoping that the case would somehow scare her away from helping him and getting involved with someone he didn't want to be involved with, but then he thought some more on the matter and decided that she would be a valuable asset to the team. There was another part of him that wanted her to be the killer. That was a dark part of him, and Len knew that no one deserved such a reputation.

"Yes. I left the folder on your desk," Rin says, sighing. She points to a manilla folder that was situated in plain sight on the right corner of his desk.. "It's right there." Len almost feels bad for Rin. Len is smart and bright and intuitive, but he is also scatterbrained at times. This just reminds him of the fact the he surely would be floundering in his own mistakes and misconceptions if he hadn't convinced her to open up the small agency with him. She hadn't been too happy to do so - she always said that if she didn't make it in Hollywood, she would rather die than spend the rest of her life as some businessman's pretty little blonde secretary. She would mimic "Yes Mister So-And-So, Of course, Mister So-and-So," to Len in a simpering voice and Len could tell that she was dead serious about the future that she saw for herself. But when she got an Agatha Christie novel - The Murder on the Links - for her fifteenth birthday (curtesy of Len, of course, who had gotten his first Christie novel at the same age), she had taken a shine to mysteries and when Len turned twenty, she, at seventeen, helped him open the firm and had begun to work there permanently when she had turned twenty under the one condition that she would help with the investigations as well.

"Oh," he says in a stroke of genius, and leans forward to grab it, making sure nothing falls out of it. He opens it cautiously, and stares at the picture of the blue haired man. He is handsome, rugged, and his blue eyes shine like a freshwater aquarium. His records are clean, too - and he is heavily involved in the music community throughout Chicago, one of the leading talent scouts of the city. Len reads more on the man, newspaper clippings featuring starlets that he has started on their careers, taking short notice of the names of the women until he until the glassy door of the office opens. Miku Hatsune stands there, in a light pink dress and a brown coat with black metal buttons is tied with a belt around her very slim and supple waist. Her hair is in a simple bun, but it is soaking wet with rain, and turned a darker shade of blue. It does not seem that she would attract much attention wearing this ensemble. Len suspects that because she is the leading suspect of a murder case, she is on the down-low. He would be, too.

"Good morning, Miss Hatsune," Len says, trying unsuccessfully to block out the irritation that threatens to slide into his voice. "So kind of you to finally join us today," Her presence is not kind on Len's nerves, however, and now that she's here, he has chills and his stomach feels like rubber. He hates it.

Miku stares at him, something that she usually does, unimpressed. "A good morning it is indeed," she replies coldly, jewel-like eyes flashing, hand gesturing to the storm wreaking havoc on the city and her sodden hair. Her teeth chatter, and her voice sounds wet, like her nose is drippy, which is confirmed when she sniffs. "Sorry I'm late, I got a bit caught up this morning." Len narrows his eyes in suspicion and turns back to Kaito's folder, finding potential relief in the creamy pages and thick card stock paper. Rin stands from her desk chair, stacks some papers neatly with a few taps, and her shoes make tapping noises as she comes to meet the new addition to the team in a very Rin way.

"You must be Miku! I'm very happy to hear you're on our little team." says Rin excitedly, glaring pointedly at Len as she rushes up to take Miku's coat and hang it on the coat stand. "Would you like a cup of coffee?" Always the friendly girl. Len wants to snap at Rin, but he pretends he didn't catch her eye. He does not want to be at the mercy of two females, not because they are females, but because they are both smart and witty and quick. He wishes he had another cup of coffee, but at this point, he thinks the caffeine would have caused him to pour it all over himself. He does not want that to happen.

"Yes, please, with sugar and cream if you don't mind," says the starlet, who was looking curiously at Rin's short and styled hair, which clung to her head like waves of spun gold. Len can't help but think about how he takes his coffee black. "Your hair is very pretty," she says slowly, and Rin giggles as she pours coffee into a clean mug from the coffee maker that sat on a table to the right of Rin's desk. Miku stands awkwardly for a few moments, very small. She seems out of her element, nervous, very different than the goddess-like figure she was yesterday evening. Even in her dressing room, she seemed larger than life, but here, in Len's office, she is unmade-up, arms drawn close to her body, more like her short height. Len can tell that he was easy ten centimeters taller than her. His height added to his scarce masculinity, and he was proud of what little he had.

"Why don't you sit down, Miss Hatsune?" Len phrases it like a question, but means it more like a command, gesturing to a chair, which was across from his desk. "You seem rather uncomforable."

"I'm freezing," she says rather blatantly. "Of course I am uncomfortable. And I'm also in a new setting, with new people, one of which makes me very nervous for reasons I cannot describe to even myself. Do you blame me, Allen, for being uncomfortable? Because frankly, I saw you at The Cabaret yesterday evening," she retorts, and then smirks smugly. She draws the chair out from under his desk and sits with a thud, crossing her knees. Rin rushes up and gives her a mug of coffee, to which Miku says a short thank you. Rin nods and walks back to her desk, shooting Len a look that is indecipherable, but Len somehow understands it.

"I was just looking at a profile of Mister Shion," Len tells Miku as he watches her take a sip of her coffee. "He seems like a fine man. And please," he winces, "Call me Len," he hedges, wishing to be more polite so that she might not take offense to things so easily.

"Not one to have a suspect profile, surely?" Miku says, eyes flashing again at the mention of her stage partner. "He helped me out of debt, you know. And countless other girls. Plus, none of it was out of lust or spite or hopes to trick us in any way. He does things out of the kindness of his heart. Kaito is a good man." She drinks again, shuddering at the warmth that travels down the insides of her porcelain throat.

"No, I suppose he doesn't seem the type to be a murder suspect," says Len, watching her swallow another piping hot gulp. "But we don't have evidence for or against him, so it would be foolish to rule him out." Miku seems temporarily appeased, but she doesn't reply to his statement. Len notices when a pink tongue flashes in and out of her lips, wetting flesh, licking her lips thoughtfully and seductively.

"What do you know about the Shions?" Len inquires. "Anything about their values, their relationship?"

Miku seems to think for a while, putting her cup down and freeing her hand so that a finger can tap at her chin."Meiko and Kaito got married shortly after I began to work at The Cabaret. Kaito's very quiet, and Meiko's very loud. She's nearly always drunk. She has a love for expensive whiskey. Kaito is very talented, and interested in talent. They are usually tied neck and neck, inseparable from one another. It is easy to tell that they love each other a whole lot. He loves to attend our rehearsals. He was watching the other girls on the night SeeU was murdered. He came to talk to me soon before Meiko found the body, about my solo and SeeU's duet with me."

"What did he say?"

"He wanted to compliment me," she says almost wistfully. "I was a chorus girl only a year ago, and he wanted to tell me how much I've improved. Then he said something about how SeeU reminded him of me."

"Why would anyone want to kill SeeU?" But the wheels are turning in Len's head. Could it have been a suicide? Kaito had an alibi with a witness, and Miku likewise. This means that the only suspect that couldn't be ruled out was Mrs. Shion, if Len took Miku's word and her words were true and verifiable.

"I don't know." she seemed sharp-tongued and bitter again. "Am I here to help, or am I simply a toy that you're using for interrogation?" She gulps her coffee down in a few other quick swallows. "I want to see Chicago. I want to get out and see the world, and not be cooped up in my apartment or my dressing room. To do that, we need to be officially out of The Cabaret, the crime scene. Let's go back to The Cabaret. We can get in before any customers come. Meiko'll be the only one there."

"It's raining like the devil," Len says, but he stands. "But I suppose you're right." Miku has a fiery glint in her eye, which is becoming of her and makes her look back to normal. It almost makes Len crack a genuinely relieved smile, but he settles for a smirk, which is more like him. She takes her coat from a hook of the coat stand, where Rin had left it. Len takes his coat and his hat from another hook. He also digs around in a storage closet by his desk, and emerges with a single black umbrella and a heavy briefcase.

Rin bids them goodbye and then they are out the door. They bristle momentarily at the icy rain and Len opens the umbrella with a blat, glad that he had thought to bring one as he raises it over the two of them. Then they turn left down the street.

The streets are crowded. The sky is terribly cloudy, black and smoky clouds raining onto the umbrellas and hats of the unprepared pedestrian. The air is chillier than yesterday, a thin wind mass of unseen force nipping at every inch of uncovered skin. Miku's teeth clatter beside him as they turn another corner, wincing at the loud sounds of car horns and the noisy chatter of people coming to and fro. Neither Len or Miku make any attempt at conversation, equally as distracted by the noise and the cold as they are fed up with each other. Len's hand grips the handle of the briefcase tightly. Miku was very close, in an effort to keep herself out of the rain, and he could smell an intoxicating perfume wafting off of her that mixed well with the rain.

Len still doesn't know why he is so annoyed with Miku. Really, he has no right to be, but Miku is such an unknown force that Len has no idea how to react to her helping with the case. She could make the case drag like a snail, or she could tie it up with a bow in no time flat and add to her fame. Miku is snappy and bitter, but she is also beautiful, with catlike grace and an almost childish way around her words. It would be foolish to say simply that her punctuality this morning was what got on Len's nerves. Maybe it was suspicion, but in an odd way, it seemed that Miku was genuine in what she told about the case, and Len had no evidence to back any opinions up anyway.

When they reach the front door of The Cabaret, Miku says "There's another door around the back, and Meiko's probably in there working. We should avoid her in case she tries to trifle with us. She can be a bit like a mother hen sometimes, so it's a good thing I've got these," she dangles a ring of keys at Len and wiggles her finger in a nearly playful "come with me" gesture as they turn into a back alley, even though her face suggests nothing of the sort. A heavy grey door with a lock sits at the back corner of the building. "This is the only way any criminal could get into The Cabaret without coming in the front of the building." She wastes no extra time in unlocking it, and they step into the building out of the blustery and wet air. They shudder with warmth, and Len notices that they have arrived in the backstage area of The Cabaret.

"In here," Miku says, and points to the set of double doors that Len had noted last night. The greenroom is nearly barren. It has tan carpet, and a brown love-seat is seated in the middle of the room. A wooden table is situated by the right wall. It is empty except for a simple, non-descript, white porcelain pitcher, which probably held water, and a few pools of grey dust. The walls are painted the same ivory color as Miku's dressing room. In the middle of the tan carpet, there is an upsetting red stain. Len feels his bones turn icy cold like the weather outside as he studies it. Miku steps around it, her eyes on Len, and then she sits on the couch in the center of the room. The large spot is dry and it looks like it has been soaked with cleaner a few times, but there is something definitely disgusting about the way it sits there like a red stop sign - an eighteen year old girl was harshly murdered where they stood. There is something eerie about the scene, and Miku's eyes look dark, like she is almost scared. He wonders what she's thinking about as she stares at the floor.

She stands suddenly and walks up to Len, staring at him intently as they stand nearly chest-to-chest. "We'd better start looking," she says, her voice high in a tinkling way, thin and not rich and beautiful and powerful like Len had come to recognize within these first few hours of knowing the starlet.

"Uh, yes," Len blinks at her; she who looks vulnerable, saddened, and fiery still. "Check for fingerprints, hair, and be careful. If anything is moved . . ." His voice trails off, mesmerized by her in a similar way to last night as he searches her unreadable eyes - like an oceanic trench, deep and mysterious and unknown. She turns away from him, and Len gets on his hands and knees to search around the bloodstain. He has his eye on Miku in his peripheral vision. She still a suspect, whether she likes it or not, but Len isn't about to tell her that she still being watched, lest she become wary and more careful in her movements if she is the culprit.

Miku sits on her knees beside the couch for a while. Then she reaches towards the corner of it and pinches something. Len looks up from where he is inspecting the carpet and looks on as she holds a wad of sunny blonde, wavy hair up into the light.

"Look," she says, but Len is already looking in unmasked interest, his eyes wide. "This is SeeU's hair." Her delicate voice seems to shake a little bit. Len stands to retrieve his briefcase, which stands in a barren corner of the room. He takes the hair and slips it into an envelope, which is located in one of the pockets of the breifcase. There are also small and large glass viles, a number of square tin boxes, and small pots of black and white powder with little brushes, tape, and small slips of paper. Collection boxes, for evidence, and fingerprinting equipment is what these things are, and Len loves to look at them.

Len puts the envelope back in the briefcase and puts the case on the table. Curiously, he looks into the white pitcher.

The water is murky with red. Len's breath hitches in surprise and Miku looks up at him. He slowly takes one of the glass viles with a cork and pours the liquid into it. Miku looks at the liquid and her face contorts into a nauseous expression.

They continue like this without much luck for a while. Len is getting frustrated, and Miku just looks bored and tired until they hear the door click open. Meiko stands there with an empty gin bottle outstretched in her hand, gripping the bottleneck tightly. She looks poised and ready for attack, and her eyes are blown wide with fear. She breathes a sigh of relief when she recognizes Miku and then Len.

"Oh," she says as she nearly collapses onto the love-seat when she enters the room. "I thought you was a burglar or somethin'. I was scared outta my mind, like maybe you were the killer of our poor SeeU."

"No, Missus," says Len, "We were just gathering evidence."

"We didn't want to bother you, Meiko, so I used my key to get to the back of the place. I'm terribly sorry we scared you like that," Miku says, and she sounds sincere, almost like she is a daughter being scolded by her mother. "Please forgive us."

Meiko smiles wearily. "I'm gettin' too old for Chicago," she says. "All this crime, and I feel like I can't catch a break," she looks lovingly at Miku. "I do love you and the girls dearly, but I don't know if I can carry on with the life I'm livin'. Even you, young man," she says to Len. "You'll grow up to marry a girl and then you'll wanna take her out of all this danger."

"What do you mean, Meiko? Do you think you're gonna move outta Chicago?" Miku cries. "I wouldn't want that. I swear we'll catch this killer, the bastard." She falls silent soon after, not wishing to cause a ruckus. Len is quite amused by the childish display. He grins to himself, indulgently.

"Now, you watch your mouth, young lady," Meiko replies, but she smiles warmly. "And I'm 'fraid that might be the case. I've already talked about it to Kaito. We'll have a nice picket fencce, just the two of us. We're both gettin' grey hairs early, stayin' here." She watches Miku's expression sadden, and Len nearly feels sorry for her. He can tell that Meiko is a good person, concerned for others' safetly. And she might be right about leaving. It isn't like Len's parents hadn't felt the same way as soon as they turned forty five, running off to live in a quiet suburban prairie city up north - Bismarck, North Dakota. "And speakin' of Kaito, I've got 'im waitin' at the bar. We were just havin' a drink - howabout you and your detective come down an' join us?" And as much as Len would like to bristle, because he is very much not Miku's detective, Miku and Meiko are already out the door.

Len moves to snap his briefcase shut and collect his things. As he is giving the room a final once over, he hears a scream ringing through the air. He snatches up his briefcase and runs out the greenroom door.

There, on the bar floor, is Kaito, sprawled out and deathly pale in contrast to the dark wooden flooring and his cerulean hair. Meiko kneels next to his right side, and Miku stands in a daze to the side of the growing pool of blood that was trickling out of the stab wound on his left.

The piano man was dead.

* * *

 **Scratch what I said at the end of the last chapter, THIS chapter was a whopping 4.3k words long! I hope you enjoyed it and I would love to hear what you have to say about it as the plot deepens.**

 **Please leave a review as they are my fuel for inspiration.**

 **~Leek**


	4. Smashing Bottles

"Are you joking?" says the woman as she brushes a strand of hair behind her ear. "I can't keep doing this for you, as much as I love the fact that you find me so useful." She speaks the final sentence with scorn and sarcasm, because she really just wants out.

"Darling, darling, darling," says the man, with a quirk to his lips. "You are a loyal member to this organization, are you not? And did you forget that you had promised me to be my pretty little hitwoman?"

The woman wants to snarl at him, and her top lip curls threateningly. "This assignment is too much for me, sir. I told you that Akita was off limits. Looks like we all break promises. Not to mention the fact that I have to act like a sleazy little showgirl in order for it to all work. I thought we were killing Hatsune, not the entire staff of The Cabaret."

"Akita's much too close to you for my liking," says the man decidedly, sounding very calm and collected, to the woman's disdain and overwhelming annoyance. "We don't want her pretty little head getting in the way."

"You unforgivable, despicable bastard!"

"And that's the last I'll hear from you, young thing. hop to it, now. I want it done quickly. Hatsune, as you mentioned, is going to regret everything she's ever laid a finger on, I promise you that, darling."

"Stop calling me darling!" she says, defeated by his piercing gaze and the looming danger in his words. She walks away with a few thuds of her feet, not caring about the consequences of her insolence. She was not his object. Nevertheless, as she walks out of the alleyway that had hidden their meeting, she feels her stomach drop and her eyes turn prickly with tears.

The world was certainly out to get her, wasn't it?

Somewhere, in the bustle of the city, she hears a siren wail, longing.

* * *

Miku Hatsune has known sadness.

She knows lots of things. Love. Desire. Delight. Admiration. Anger. Loneliness. Sadness. How to elegantly hold a cigarette and how to charm a crowd and what not to drink and that chewing mint leaves before bed infinitely helps her relax into the night. What is expected of her. She has not known true family, but she figures Meiko and Kaito were pretty close to the real thing.

And within the week, there have been two new emotions.

The first was loss. It came like a weight, crushing her soul and her heart and leaving her blind with the blurriness of tears and life.

The second was something she could not place. It comes to her when she watches Len tear Meiko away from Kaito's side and sitting her in a chair as she shrieks at him. Moaning, sobbing. Insanity. He's trying to calm her down, gripping her hands and putting pressure in her palms. Miku would go to her if she could move. She can't. She turns her head back to Kaito. Her knees feel wobbly. Her stomach feels sick. She has a crippling need to force herself into Len's arms. She doesn't understand anything, let alone that. It was probably a desire to be comforted.

She's shaking now, trembling and quaking. Her vision is swimming. Meiko is still screaming, protests flying from her mouth like bullets. It is too loud. Miku wants to plunge her head into a warm bucket of water.

"Like hell I'll calm down!"

Miku can't hear when Len replies to Meiko, just a low and soothing sound, smooth like glass.

Her cheeks are tingling. She mechanically reaches her hand to feel them, but her fingers come away wet. Tears. How undignified.

Meiko collapses in a sob. It is quite a bit quiter, and Miku no longer wants to throw her head in a large bucket of water as desperately. Miku vaguely registers Len's eyes when they turn on her. They are blue, like sapphires and like Kaito's hair, which is now splayed out on the floor and matted with red. She also registers when his hands places themselves on her shoulders softly and carefully, guiding her to a bar stool and hearing his voice, soothing to her ears although she cannot decipher what he's saying. He only hears "phone". Something tells her that this is not good, but his back turns to her and he walks out of the Cabaret.

Meiko's shoulders are shaking. Miku watches them blankly, and feels the tears still dripping down. Her shoulders match Meiko's. She can feel the cries and sobs wracking through her body. She still cannot hear clearly. She stares ahead. Meiko is focused, and Kaito lays in the peripheral of her vision. Len comes back a few minutes later, and swiftly walks to Meiko, crouching down before her.

"Meiko, what would you like me to do with the alchohol?"

"Throw it out. Out. I want it all gone." Hearing her reply, she is almost startled back to her senses by the bartender's response.

No, Meiko, no, you can't, you mustn't do that, you know how high the prices are, and the dealers aren't too lenient - She wants to say this, but instead she makes a strangled noise that bubbles from the back of her throat to just barely escape her lips. Len glances at her over his shoulder.

"Hatsune, can you stand?"

No. But she nods her head, wishing that he hadn't sounded so harsh. He probably hadn't meant to sound that way, and Miku had only met him personally last night, and they weren't necessarily on a first name basis, but she found herself complaining inwardly through her haze. Call me Miku. Hold my hands like you did to Meiko. Comfort me. Miku gathers strength in her thighs and mechanically pushes herself up. She stands, wobbles, and straightens herself by gripping the countertop.

"Can you help me smash these bottles?" Len asks, his voice even, as he picks a few from the shelves behind the bar until his arms are full to bursting. Miku nods and follows him out of the Cabaret, into the alleyway in which they had arrived not two hours earlier. Miku stares up at the sky. The rain was still falling down. Her eyelashes collected the rain like they collected her tears. She took a bottle from Len's arms and, in a sudden burst of angry strength, she hurls it at the brick wall of the bar. It shatters. She takes another and smashes it, gin splashing to the ground and swept away by the rain.

Len watches her. His eyes are blue like the sky should be, and he is maddeningly unreadable. Every emotion she sees in them is something like pain, but there's something else. And Miku mentally swears - if it's pity she will smash one of the bottles into his head. He sets the bottles on the ground and picks one to them up, handing it to her. His shirt and hair are completely soaked, clinging to him like paint on a canvas.

She can't think anymore.

Another bottle is smashed.

And another.

And another.

And another.

She doesn't know when Len left, but she registers when he returns, carrying the rest of the liquor with him.

 _Smash._

 _Shatter._

 _Sob_.

She is rinsed by the rain, and then she repeats. More and more, 'til the bottles are gone and she's grasping for another but there aren't any left. And then she just stands there, soaked, weeping, and Len draws her gingerly closer and holds her for a bit. They stand there, in the rain. Len is warm and he smells like spice and tobacco and toothpaste and cigar smoke. She likes it, but it is foreign. And then they hear a car pull up, and then they hear footsteps, and Len opens the door of the Cabaret and Miku walks in with him.

A green haired woman stands over Kaito's body daintily. She is wearing a skirt and a blazer and she would look boyish if not for the dusting of makeup on her cheeks and the lipstick that coats her lips.

"Hello, Meg." Len addresses her in an almost careful manner. "I see you've found the victim." Miku had been sure he had made the phone call to the police, perhaps she had been wrong.

"You are so horrible at greetings," remarks the girl called Meg, who sticks her hand out, waiting for it to be shaken. "Anyway, I'm Megumi Nakajima, and I am a police woman. Please call me Gumi. It really is much preferred, but Len is annoying and stubborn. It's endearing. If you're around him much, you'll begin to love it too." Her babble is said in a sweet voice, and Miku would be interested in replying back to her in an equally enthusiastic way, but the fact that her favorite person is dead on the floor next to her is a bit distracting and she can't really think about anything else. Additionallly, she is a bit shocked at the fact that Gumi is a police woman, with her petite form and delicate way of holding herself.

Miku shakes Megumi Nakajima's hand, and opens her mouth. "I'm Miku, Hatsune Miku. Kaito is dead."

"Oh, honey! I really can be so insensitive," her mouth moves rapidly and she seems taken aback by somethng. Miku can't pinpoint what exactly it might be, but she is aware that it has something to do with her. She banters on, but Miku doesn't pick up on what she's saying.

"Meg, can you please put on your big-girl pants and be a police woman?"

"Shut up, Len."

Len seems to be getting verbally beaten up by his female friends a lot lately.

Gumi continues. "Yes, Miku, I'm afraid Kaito is dead. I've called a paramedic, and they're on their way to pick up the body."

Miku makes a choking sound. Gumi's grassy green eyes look genuine and sad. "Len, maybe you should bring Miku to your flat."

Len looks like he doesn't have any idea why that would be advisable, but then Gumi whispers something into his ear, taking a step foreward, and his expression changes into an "oh-yes-maybe-I-should-bring-Miku-to-my-flat-how-could-I-have-been-so-dense" expression. Miku wonders why she can't just go home, and then she decides that she doesn't want to be left alone anyway; that she doesn't. Len's face doesn't touch the worry in his eyes.

"And what about Meiko?" he asks, glancing at Meiko's silent and slumped figure in the chair to the right of Gumi.

"I'll look after her. Now really, hail a cab and get going. I swear you are the most emotionally constipated idiot I have ever laid my eyes on. If your sister and I weren't there with you every step of the way - "

"I have already been told how incompetent I am, Meg."

"Rinny probably reminds you of it whenever she gets the chance, right?" She steps onto her tip toes and kisses him on the cheek. "Well, we only mean about half of it. Now, scoot!" And she practically shoves them out the door with a "And my name's not Meg!"

* * *

Len has never enjoyed a cab ride less. Miku's mind is still back at The Cabaret, and her eyes look glassy and dead. Her cheeks are red and wet, and she is glaring out the window with anger and tears. Len still feels her pressed against him in the alley earlier. She smelled like flowers something else - mint, maybe. The driver keeps glancing back at the pair, obviously wondering what was going on. He is glad about Gumi's advice to take a cab, though. He had had enough of the rain, and he was still damp and chilled for when he had been standing wth the girl in the alley earlier. The events of the morning were making him tired.

When they arrive at the nondescript corner and get into the building, the driver lets Miku out and says something like "Musta hadda couple's spat. Women." Len glares, because they weren't a couple and Miku had just had the shock of her life and she was taking it way too well to be lumped in with "Women." Miku shivers and looks like she is going to collapse any second, but she doesn't appear to have heard the man, much to Len's relief. The stairs are not a good idea for either of them, but there are eleven floors in his apartment building, and he lived on the fifth, so they had to make the trek anyway. Each are too weary to make any comment on the difficulty of the walk up. Len jams his key into the key hole and twists, once they arrive at the door, opening his apartment.

It is tidy, for the most part, because Rin had been there earlier that week and cleaned it for him (Much to his chagrin. She had put everything away, out of their convenient places scattered about the rooms.). The kitchen is to the right of the door, and a bar separates the kitchen from the living room. There are several bowls and plates and mugs that stand in the sink, waiting to be washed, and a button up shirt lies, discarded, close to the sofa. The walls are painted a pretty, light, dusty forest green, and there is a window that had a fantastic view of the street in front of it. Book shelves seem to line the walls, and a file cabinet is in the corner in the living room between two bookshelves. A door on the left of the living room leads to a small bedroom, and a hallway to the right leads to a bathroom and Len's bedroom.

Len hangs his coat and hat on a hook by the door, and when Miku is through with her assessment of the place, he takes hers as she shrugs it off. It looks delicate next to his black one, the brown sugar color standing out against it. He slips off his shoes and goes to the stove to put on a pot of water for tea. Then he walks into the bathroom and begins to run a warm bath. He lays a towel and Rin's dressing gown on the counter.

"Take a bath, it might help you calm down a bit. Leave your clothes outside the door and I'll put them in the drying machine downstairs." He says. "You can wear Rin's dressing gown that I set out for you. You're about the same size."

Miku walks jerkily into the bathroom and shuts the door. Len stares at the brown wood for a few seconds and then he walks into his bedroom, where he finally undoes his tie and peels off his shirt and trousers for a new set. His hair is damp, so he takes it out of the ribbon he usually wears and lets it fall loosely around his neck and shoulders, coming through it with his fingers as he stares into a looking glass that hung on his wall.

When he's done changing, he returns to the living room and stares at the rain falling against the window, trying to forget the minty, flowery scent he'd breathed from Miku's silky hair. He watches a white haired woman get into a taxi, and a young girl with black hair rush to keep up with her father, who is holding the umbrella and wearing glasses and a business-like expression.

He watches the street until he hears the shriek of the kettle and rushes to make the tea. Then he gathers Miku's clothing from where she left it in a neat pile, and takes it to the laundry room. He isn't quite used to the new-fangled washing and drying machines, but he knew how to work the dryer, thanks to Rin, who had told him that she couldn't do his laundry and clean his apartment, and that he needed to do his own chores once in a while. He did do his own chores - he cooked for himself and he could do the dishes when they needed to be done, and he could make his bed, although it looked a bit lopsided when he did. He also knew how to sweep, but he couldn't touch the Hoover for the life of him, so he left the carpet cleaning for Rin.

He sips his tea thoughtfully, looking at all of the books on the shelves until he hears the bathroom door open. Miku stood silently, her hair damp and hanging in two long braids. Rin's innocent butter yellow bathrobe turned into something sensual when it clung to Miku's shoulders and down her body. It wasn't her fault, and she was adequately covered. Len didn't think it to be too distracting, and as his investigation partner, it would be foolish to think of her as anything but.

He regards her carefully. She seems to have recovered from her original state of shock, but she looks cold and exhausted. Len pours her tea from the still-hot kettle from the stove. Miku perches herself on the sofa and looks out the window, sipping timidly. Her skin, freshly bathed, looks like porcelain, and her hair is silky and catches the light that filters in from the cloudy day.

Len watches her, and is so caught up in doing so that, when Miku moves her lips, he doesn't hear what she says.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I just - I wanted to thank you." She says, eyes dropping to her cup, which sat in her lap. "My first day, and I really botched it, didn't I?"

Len blinks. "No," he says. "You didn't botch it at all."

"Really? You seem the type to believe in a 'job mode'. No time to worry about anyone."

Len gawks at her. "Do I really?" When Miku nods, he grimaces and lets out a low breath, and sits down beside her in a relaxed pose.i

"Miku," He says, tasting the name on his lips. "I'm not a picture show detective. I'm no Sherlock Holmes. I get scared and I have to have Rin do things for me because I'm not organized, and I run away from my problems like a mouse from a cat. I can shoot a gun, but shooting a gun doesn't make someone brave, and neither does pretending you're better than everyone else. Today, you showed extreme bravery. We're all human. You don't have to pretend that you aren't sad, or scared, or even disturbed by what happened today."

Miku stares at him, amazed. Len has to divert his eyes from the intensity of her gaze, which is bright and piercing.

And Len wasn't lying, Len knew exactly what he was capable of, how to get around thing and how to make it look like he was a high class, intelligent person. He didn't give himself credit for half the things he did, but he is sure of himself in this moment. Miku sips again.

"I'm very scared, Len," she says quietly. "I'm so scared."

"I know," says Len, and he does.

* * *

A bit of a shorter chapter than usual, sorry! Also, I've been super busy, so I haven't answered a lot of reviews, but I read every single one of them!

xoxo

~Leek


	5. Tea

Germaine Sakine Shion was a strong woman. She maintained her speakeasy and made deals with the bootleggers. She didn't know a snake charmer as good as herself. She was by no means a woman of the past - if there was ever a flapper, Meiko, with her bobbed hair and red lipstick, was it. She was intelligent and she didn't need a man to hold her hand through life. Germaine Sakine Shion kept her last name, but new people, like Len, who had only seen her name in the papers, knew her by her late husband's name.

She had never needed a man. She had never needed a man.

As she sat in her house on the outer suburbs of Chicago, the silence was deafening. The clock on the mantle chimed every fifteen minutes as she sat in silence on her creamy white loveseat. There was nothing to do. A sleek, white, baby grand piano stood in the corner of the room. Meiko didn't know how to play the piano. She was a singer before the Cabaret had opened, and she still crooned a few songs for fun sometimes, but now she wondered if she would ever find joy in it again.

The clock struck midnight. The moon echoed its silvery light into the house through the frothy white curtains, which had been a wedding present. Meiko stared at the dust that had settled like stars on the surfaces of the room. Germaine Sakine Shion had never needed a man.

But now she did. She needed her Kyle Shion.

* * *

Miku sat cross legged on Len's couch all afternoon. He brought her books and cups of tea, her favourite blend of the afternoon being a Chamomile with lavender and mint hints. Sometimes she silently burst into tears, hoping that he wouldn't notice or make any move to talk to her about that morning's events. She wanted to sort herself out on her own. She had to stay strong.

Len noticed, but he was quiet. He read one of his many expensive looking books and didn't pry. Miku appreciated that. Now it was seven o' clock. She looked up from the book she had been reading - This Side Of Paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which she didn't like very much, but it took her mind off of matters and really wasn't that terrible. Len noticed her movement, and decided he should make more of an effort to console the girl.

"Are you enjoying that?" He asked her softly, like she was a mouse who would bolt if he so much as spoke.

Miku shrugged. "I think it's a bit of a mess of a book, honestly." She didn't seem to want to up and leave, but Len could not be sure.

Len quirked his lips. "Fitzgerald was obviously an extremely intelligent man, but that book does seem like he just took all the ideas he had in his head and splatted them into a text. I'm assuming you've read The Great Gatsby?"

Miku did not smile back. "I have," she says. "And I enjoyed it very much. Truly a classic, even if it only was written three years ago. And, of course, the presence of bootlegging in the plot was a little too real for someone like me."

Len was silent for a while, thinking about how to back track from that path of conversation. Then, he says "Miku, will you tell me how you came about the Cabaret? It'll be difficult, but I - I just want to try to understand your relationship with - "

"Don't say his name." she cuts him off, speaking sharper than she has all day, and Len thinks about the dressing room, and the soft, violet coloured couch. Her eyes are just as lively as they had been that night. He opens his mouth to apologize, but she sighs and holds up a hand to silence him, seeming repentant.

"This is hard for me, and you're not making it any simpler," she says. "But if it will ease you, I will tell you about how I came to live with Meiko and Kaito."

Len turned to face his whole body towards her, nodding and looking intrigued in an extremely childish way. His golden hair hung around his shoulders in elegant tendrils, and he shook them back with a few jerks of his head. She made a note of how handsome he was like this, undone, so different than the stern and steadily exasperated detective she had come to recognize. And then she decides that now is definitely not the time to be fawning over him.

She took a deep breath to prepare herself before she speaks. "When I was eleven, my father died. His name was Al and he was everything a daughter could have wished for. I was the princess in the house, but then he got drafted into the war in around 1917 or so. I'm not entirely sure about the year."

Miku shut her book carefully and sat up straight.

"About six months later, my mother, Ann, got a telegram." She sucked in a breath. "My father had been killed in the Hundred Days Offensive. My mother was beside herself. I was too little to really understand what was happening. I was sad. I couldn't grasp the magnitude of the situation.

"My mother began to change in the falling days after my father's funeral. She didn't go out anymore, for tea, or with her friends. She drank heavily in the days before the Prohibition started, and after as well. This carried on until was about fifteen. One day she told me to pack a bag and get in the car. She was wearing her dressing gown, and she looked frazzled. I did as I was told without much thought.

"That night, she drove me from Springfield, where I had grown up, to Chicago. She dropped me off on a street, shoved seventy-five dollars into my hands, said "Oh, Michaela," and drove away. I was mortified," she shudders and lets out a weak laugh, although Len doesn't find any of it funny at all. "It was cold."

Miku glances at him sadly and crosses her arms, like she can remember how cold the air had been. "I sat there and cried for a while, and then a man by the name of Bruno came up to me and asked for my name. I gave him Miku, which was a name my father had given me."

She uncrosses her legs and stands carefully, walking with saddened grace to the window, looking out over the city. She looks like she is sleep walking. she turns back accusingly. "Why am I telling you this? I met you yesterday."

Len blinks, and then winces, thinking back to the purple sofa for the second time. "I - er. I wanted to know."

She falls silent, turning her back to him and glaring out the window some more. "I'll tell you the rest. But not today."

Len nods, and when he realizes he can't see her, he makes a clumsy little noise of encouragement and affirmation. "Tea?" He says.

"That," she says awkwardly, glancing back, "Would be lovely. The minty chamomile, please."

"You really like mint, don't you?"

"Yes. It's a...personal preference, she says. "It calms me down, some kind of herbal trick. I suck on mint leaves before bed usually, but this tea has the same effect."

"It reminds me of your hair."

She rolls her eyes at this good-naturedly and looks out the window again.

As he puts more water on the stove, Len watches Miku with wonder, thinking about his unjustified annoyance with the girl this morning. Death changed everyone it payed a visit to, and he could still feel the uncomfortable heaviness in the air that had been laid so thick at the is still watching her when she turns back around and says "What are you gawking at?"

He chuckles. "Oh, I'm just thinking back to who I was this morning."

"I really hated you this morning," says Miku bluntly. "Or at least I disliked you."

"Why?" He isn't surprised, so the tone of his voice is calm and amused.

"Because you make me nervous. You seem to be calm and superior and collected but you're not, because you're a child, really. You're immature and curious about everything." She goes back to the couch, her knees on the cushions, kneeling on it backwards, so that she can look at Len with watery aquamarine eyes.

"I just have a thirst for knowledge, what's the matter with that?"

"I can see it in your face. You're childish and scatterbrained."

"And I have a thirst for knowledge." Len will not give up.

"Sure, whatever, Mister."

"I like it better when you just call me Len," he says this like a joke but means it honestly.

"Sure, whatever, Mister," she repeats, deadpan.

"You're saying I'm the childish one?" She pouts mockingly. Len continues, amused. "I didn't like you much, either. You're infuriating. And feisty. And you won't leave me with my thoughts." he smiles at her as he says this.

"Guilty as charged, Mister Detective. Nice job putting the clues together." she looks like she is about to laugh, but she sobers in a millisecond and looks vaguely sad again. Len wishes that the kettle would hurry up and boil. Instead, he rummages in his cupboards a bit to put his mind off of things, like death and rain and flowery mint scents.

There is nothing to eat except a few slices of bread and a package of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Len closes it and checks the ice box only to find a small carton of cream and a bottle of milk. The candy looked mouth-watering, but not for dinner, and the bread was not fit to eat. Len wonders how he has been feeding himself for the past few weeks, because he can't remember the last time he had been grocery shopping.

"Would you mind if I called Rin and had her bring us Chinese food or something?" he asks.

"Not at all."

Len rushes to take the pot off the stove as it begins to scream, grateful for a disturbance for once in his life.

* * *

About a half an hour and one telephone call to the office later, Rin bursts in with a mostly unintelligible but excited shout, carrying a paper bag in her arms. She dumps it on the table violently. Len tells her to go sit down and calm herself, taking all the little white boxes and bundles out of the bag and setting the table with plates and wooden chopsticks and glasses of water.

"Well, I thought you might like to know that we got everything cleaned up at the Cabaret." Rin says as soon as they have all sat down and begun to dish up food. "Gumi's a machine, she took all of the press outside once the police were done and gave an impromptu press conference. I got back the the office at around five o'clock."

Miku blanches at the mention of the press. Len looks at Rin sharply.

"How is Meiko? Is she alright?" asks Miku quietly. There is no doubt that she wants to know. Len can't blame her. He should have thought of checking in on Meiko sooner, or at least calling Rin earlier.

"Oh, she's taking everything quite well, considering everything. I escorted her home myself, of course, and she seemed to be over the tantrum, at least."

"It wasn't a tantrum, Rin. It was a heart-breaking expression of natural and unadulterated grief." says Len, gritting his teeth and wishing she would drop the subject all together. Miku looked as vulnerable as a water-balloon that was filled too full and within reach of a pin. He guesses that Miku was worried to the bone about her mother figure, and doesn't want to provoke her with such delicate topics.

"Right. Yes, I'm sorry," Rin at least looks sheepish, glancing at Miku and back to Len. "But I saved some evidence!" She takes a large bite of a pork egg-roll and follows it down with a too-big spoonful of some white rice.

"Did you?" Len sips his glass of water and looks over at Miku, who is doing not much other than picking at her food, sort of nibbling at a dumpling. "Well, maybe I'll come down to the office in the morning and take a look. In the morning. We can talk about all of this in the morning."

Rin opens her mouth like she wants to argue, but a withering look from Len tells her that this is not the time. Len is annoyed at the fact that Rin has interrupted his and Miku's quiet peace on the rainy evening. She was friendly, but lacked much of the sensitivity needed to be able to tell when it was a good idea to bring things up. Common courtesy was something that Rin had yet to dabble in.

"Speaking of morning, I'm very tired," says Miku, looking up from her mostly untouched plate. "I'd like to go to bed now."

"Would you like me to show you to your room?"

Miku looks amused for a second. "Your apartment isn't really that big, Allen," she says, and then she goes through the doorway to the guest bedroom, hips sauntering and steps jerky.

"Is she still on the case?" asks Rin quietly in interest as the door shuts.

"I think so," he replies honestly. "We haven't really talked about it, but she seemed to not have any intent on leaving the case."

"Oh, wonderful!" says Rin, her tone much happier as she sits back in her chair, her stomach full. "She's got all of those connections..."

Len stares at Miku's door. "Yeah. She's something."

* * *

 **Oh my goodness this is so late. What happened was I wrote a chapter that was so so so OOC and rushed, so I had to rewrite it because I hardcore hated it.**

 **So, alas, you will have to settle for a filler chapter. Take a breather from my angst for a sec.**

 **Also, I've been neglecting my PMs and I'm so sorry but I've been very busy. Sorry sorry sorry.**

 **~Leek-Lit**


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